Nalgonda: Konam Foundation, which was founded by a team of service-minded engineering students, is working with a mission to devise technology-driven solutions to accelerate the pace of accomplishment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and also to deploy them by leveraging the potential of existing active non-profit sector organisations across the globe.

Roboticist Konam Sandeep, who belongs to Devarakonda town in Nalgonda district and is a Robotics student at Carnegie Mellon University in the US, launched the Konam Foundation recently. During this visit to his native place, he spoke to us about the projects of the foundation.

He said that societal backwardness and social evils in Devarakonda, where tribal population is in a significant number, has driven him to take the initiative to form a foundation to help NGOs. The foundation will also work as a bridge between tech innovators and non-profit organisations here, he said.

“We will identify real-world problems in education, health, energy, public safety, transportation and economic development by working closely with non-profit organisations. These problems are carefully drafted as challenges and opened up to innovators and change-makers to develop solutions,” he told Tabloid Today.

Talking about the projects being developed by the foundation to help NGOs, Sandeep said, “Using advanced image processing techniques and camera-equipped mobile devices, screening for cancer bio-marker detection can be made simple. It can help NGOs conduct cancer screening camps. An image analysis system for early detection of glaucoma disease is also in the offing.”

Mango cultivation requires a huge manpower, he said, adding that his foundation’s project Agricultural Aid for Mango Cutting (AAM) Robo will help in reducing the manpower requirement and increasing productivity by identifying hidden mangos with sensors.

He said that an eight-member team of Konam Foundation is working on developing solutions to help NGOs make social change easy.
A cash prize of Rs 50K will be given away to innovators who present the best solutions on resource sharing, neonatal health care, disaster management, public safety and reduction of food waste, Sandeep said. The innovators can submit their solutions to the website konamfoundation.com.

Giving an example of how technology helps save lives, Sandeep pointed out that the first 28 days of life — the neonatal period — is the most vulnerable time for a child’s survival. “Dr Abhay and Rani Bang of Pune have developed a Home-Based Neonatal Care (HBNC) package that provides low-cost, primary neonatal care by using human potential available in villages, and thereby reduces neonatal mortality and improves neonatal health,” he said.